Mazda: Australians not interested in self-driving and electric vehicles

Technology providers not customers pushing latest trends in car development says local boss.

Mazda: Australians not interested in self-driving and electric vehicles

06 August 2015Stephen Ottley

Australian new car customers don't want self-driving cars.

That's the view of Mazda Australia managing director Martin Benders who says there hasn't been any customer demand for cars to drive themselves.

Although he concedes that some drivers would like the technology in certain circumstances, widespread acceptance of autonomous vehicles is still a long way in the future.

Several car makers including Audi, BMW and Volvo as well as technology giant Google have been pushing forward with autonomous vehicle development with the aim of bringing a self-driving car to market in the near-future.

But asked if he has seen any demand from customers Benders was blunt.

"No," he said. "There may be demand if they can imagine all these cars going onto the freeway and being able to concentrate the [traffic density] with autonomous [vehicles] so you could put more cars on the road, but when they get to the other end they've got to disperse again. I still can't get my head around it. I can see some circumstances when it would be useful but I just don't see how it could be a general thing."

He believes the autonomous car is being pushed by the technology developers, such as Bosch and Siemens, and high-profile advocates Google. But he raised the on-going issue of the unproven technology be used in the real world.

"I really like the statement when Google says something like 'we've had 50 accidents this year but none of them were our fault' (laughs)," he said.

Benders is also unconvinced on the short-term appeal of hybrids and electric vehicles, despite Mazda's recently announced partnership with Toyota to co-develop future petrol-electric models. That could allow Mazda to take advantage of Toyota's more extensive knowledge of hybrids.

"Even when we've talked about Skyactiv generation two with the HCCI technology [homogeneous charge compression ignition] the final piece to that is an electric drive off the shaft to get if off the mark, but the only power you need from that you could do with an i-Eloop, you wouldn't need a battery pack in a sense, but it would still be classed as a light hybrid," Benders explained.

"That combination of HCCI and electric part they send it would deliver the same wheel-to-well emissions as an electric vehicle getting the current mix of power generation in Japan."

Benders did admit that the partnership with Toyota could be beneficial for Mazda in being able to add hybrids to its range but said it was too early to make an definitive statements.

"They've talked about a whole lot of things but they really haven't decided," he said.

"All they've done is say 'yeah, we think this can be positive' and they've identified a number of people who can work together on it… But it was an announcement ahead of its time."

He added: "Who knows what they'll come up with. They may come up with a new idea of combining electrics with powertrains or whatever, I really don't know. All they've said is 'let's work together on what we can do here.'"